Fata Morgana
by Ersatz
Summary: Small, but probably not perfectly formed. No plot one-shot – hope you enjoy.


**Author's Note:** No plot one-shot, which would have been perfect for St. Patrick's Day had I realised St. Patrick's Day was yesterday. Hurm. Hope you enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** Lupin III isn't mine? Faith and Begorrah!

* * *

**Fata Morgana**

The storm blew in from the West, knocking out power from Ballinrobe to Sligo.

Inside O'Malley's Alley the lights died, the juke choked, and the bar's sole patron fled home to his wife and newborn daughter in a rare fit of conscience.

Dom O'Malley swabbed the bar by candlelight. Not one for current affairs, he'd nevertheless kept an eye on the headlines until the bloody TV went blind. To be sure it was big news. And to happen only a few miles from his humble pub! He swabbed faster in anticipation of tourist coffer.

The bar door swung suddenly wide, strewing leaves and fag butts over the stained boards.

'Jaysus,' O'Malley yelled over the gale. 'Ya born in a bloody barn?'

'S'cuse me.'

It was a man's voice, scuffed as the bootheels that crossed him from darkness to flickering candlelight.

O'Malley eyed the stranger; rumpled suit, foreign shoes, fedora – gale-proof, evidently - yanked obstinately low.

He shifted his weight closer to the Winchester tucked under the bar. 'You gonna be trouble?'

'Troublemaking days are over,' said the stranger, scraping back a stool and settling with a grunt. 'Pour something wet, will ya?'

A Yank, by the sound of it, but with a twang to his accent O'Malley couldn't quite place.

O'Malley prided himself on matching the customer to the drink. He seized a tumbler and measured a double bourbon; straight, no ice.

The stranger grasped the glass, tilted it - 'To lost friends' - and drained it in one throatful.

Plenty of sorrows had drowned in these cracked walls, but O'Malley wagered this man's were strong swimmers.

'Hell of a night,' he said affably, pouring another.

The hat tilted back a notch. 'Got that right.'

It was a relief when the man, obviously the type to prefer liquid comfort over a friendly ear, turned his attention to the tumbler rolling thoughtfully between his calloused palms.

O'Malley knew when to quit.

He was running out of surfaces to swab when the door blew wide a second time, snuffing the candle so the bar flashed monochrome with stormlight.

A match sizzled to illuminate the figure in the doorway.

It took only seconds for O'Malley to register the newcomer was wearing a skirt, and wielding something ominous. 'Christ-alive! He's got a bloody sword!'

'Do not be alarmed.'

O'Malley gawped. ''Alarmed'! 'Alarmed', he says! Can you believe it?' he demanded of man at the bar, who merely grunted and relit the candle with the tip of his cigarette.

Wait a second…

'Wait a second,' he repeated aloud. 'I get what this is. You're with Al Capone here, right? You're a bloody Ninja!'

The Ninja sighed.

'You got some fancy-dress gig going on, eh?' O'Malley clapped hands to knees. 'Who's next? Elvis? Marilyn flaming Monroe? Ah, this is priceless! Wait 'til I tell Old Ned – he's been dressing like a fairy for years.'

The Ninja appeared unamused as he glided to sit with the mobster, placing his 'sword' lengthwise across his thighs.

Still chuckling, O'Malley sauntered to the working side of the bar and planted both fists on the stained wood. 'Well, I admit you got me stumped, Ninja. What'll it be?'

The man regarded him blankly. 'Be?'

'He means drink,' growled the other around his cigarette.

'I see.' A significant puase. 'Osake.'

'Fresh out. Here.' He slopped a generous tot of his finest firewater into a glass. 'Wrap your gums around that.'

The Ninja sniffed his drink warily. 'What is this?'

'Poteen. Potato wine,' he added at the blank expression he got in response.

'Ah,' said the man, apparently reassured.

'Jaysus, now what?' O'Malley exclaimed, for the door had creaked open a third time.

Dark hair snaked through the gap before a face, pale except where it was striped with mascara, peered inside.

The lass made a cautious entry, hair clinging to her cheeks with no wind to coax it. O'Malley had no idea what she was supposed to be dressed as, but her outfit looked bloody painted on. And then he saw the small velvet box gripped her white hands.

'Ah,' said O'Malley as the reason for the pained expressions, the pressed lips, the unmistakable air of frustration, suddenly became clear. What plagued these men was old and unfathomable as time itself; women trouble.

He poured a glass of Lambrini, added a splash of Schweppes, and placed it on the bar side closest to the door. 'Now if you folks'll excuse me, there's some business needs attending 'round back. Any of you need anything, anything at all, just give us a yell.'

And with that, Dom O'Malley gratefully retreated from the scene.

Heels click as the woman walked to place the small box on the bar.

'Morgana's Heart, gentlemen.' Her voice is low in contrast to the wind shrilling at the diamond-pane window. 'I propose we divide the proceeds.'

This is met by a scornful grunt.

'Then what do you suggest, Jigen?' she asks evenly, turning to the smoking man.

Calloused fingers whiten on the tumbler of scotch. 'After what we just went through? Trash it for all I frickin' care.'

'Yes, let's,' replies the woman. 'Let's make sure this whole deal was a complete waste of time.'

'Time?' Jigen turned on the woman, teeth bared. 'Tell me what's so precious about it, Fujiko. What makes your time more precious than Lupin's lif—?'

'Fifty-fifty.'

Strange how such quiet tones had the power to make the others look the Samurai's way, and remain silent until his next words.

'I will take none of the profit and meditate on the stone's true price.'

'How noble,' Fujiko spat. 'Make me look even worse, why don't you?'

'I believe you are perfectly capable of doing that on your own.'

'Shut up, Goemon.'

'Smartest thing you've said all night,' Jigen sneered.

'Our anger is understandable,' said Goemon carefully. 'But we must not allow it to become misplaced.'

Jigen swigged straight from the bottle of scotch. 'Can't misplace it. Staring us right in the goddamned face.'

'It wasn't our fault,' Fujiko announced after a leaden pause. 'The storm…It wasn't our fault,' she said again, fainter this time.

Her fingers trembled as they reached for the box and slowly pried it open. Nestled within was a bloodstone the size of a pickled plum.

Lightening spat outside. The stone flared in that weird light, throwing crimson shards on the woman's rapt face.

'Beautiful,' she murmured.

'Detestable woman.'

Fujiko smirk was venomous. 'Careful, Goemon. Don't misplace that anger now.'

'I will not sup with such a heartless creature.'

Jigen sighed as the Samurai snatched up Zantetsuken and began his stately exit from the bar. 'See you 'round, Goemon?'

'If the wind wills it.'

'Yeah, well.' The gunman shot a dark look at the window. 'Wind's been a bitch lately.'

The door opened, closed.

Jigen stood, causing Fujiko to glance up from her prize.

'Abandoning me too Jigen?'

'Far as I can tell,' he drawls, settling the fedora low over his eyes. 'You always were alone.'

She closed the box gently. 'Not until now.'

'Well, I'd say it's been a pleasure, but…ya know.'

'Goodbye, Jigen.'

And that is how O'Malley finds her, alone with an empty scotch bottle and black velvet box.

'Sorry, Missy, but it's getting late…' He upturned a stool on the bar for emphasis. 'Anything I can get you? A cab? Old Greg will drop you off wherever you like.'

She looked up, her gaze clouded. 'Sicily.'

'Um. That's hardly up the road, love.'

'I was always happy there,' she says absently, sliding from the stool.

'It'll mend, you know,' he calls out on impulse. 'Hearts always do.'

Fluorescents stutter overhead as she reaches the door. The old TV suddenly awakens. Absently, he realises the same headline is still playing and the world's greatest thief is still dead.

He sees her stiffen, a shadow against the night.

'Keep the change, Mister O'Malley.'

Her words tick in his mind as he gathers the empty glasses to swill under the tap. Some 'change' - none of his strange customers had paid for their drinks. Still, the Ninja had given him a laugh.

'Whew,' exclaimed a new voice. 'Talk about a dark and stormy night!'

'Closing time's been and gone, friend,' he mutters, turning. 'And if you're looking for the fancy dress gang, you just missed 'em.'

The man shrugs and grins. He is drenched, dark hair slicked wetly back, jacket almost black with rain. 'They're not so hard to find. Tell me, was one of them a girl?' And here the stranger's grin turns a little sloppy.

'About yea high?' O'Malley asks diplomatically. 'Sure was. Think the Lambrini went to her head, though – on about heading to Italy or someplace.'

That smiling face is suddenly serious. 'Sicily?'

'That's it. Nice looking lass. Bit on the scary side, mind.'

'You don't know the half of it,' the man breathed.

O'Malley's hand began swabbing the bar on autopilot, then paused as it brushed something unfamiliar.

'Oh, Jaysus.'

The man cocked an enquiring eyebrow as O'Malley gestured at the velvet box.

'She's only bloody gone and left it.'

The man took the box in his wide grasp, opened it. 'She…left this?' he asks doubtfully.

'What did I tell you? Away with the fairies.'

O'Malley frowned as the fellow pressed the box back at him.

'Keep it. It's not Morgana's heart I'm after anyway.'

'Won't your lady be mad?'

And here the grin turned almost maniacal. 'As a viper. See you later, friend.'

The door closes on the storm for the last time that night.

O'Malley flicks the lock and stares at the dark wood for a long time.

'Bloody foreigners,' he murmurs, and wonders what the weather's like in Sicily this time of year.


End file.
